Science - Sunday, May 31, 2026

Severe, hard-to-control blazes in densely populated areas like Los Angeles drove the year’s record losses.

Great apes appear to build friendships much like humans do. By studying grooming behavior, researchers discovered that chimpanzees and bonobos form close inner circles along with wider networks of weaker social connections. Chimpanzees focus on a few trusted partners and become more selective with age, while bonobos maintain a more egalitarian social style.

Scientists have developed a solar desalination system that turns seawater into drinking water without creating environmentally damaging brine. Special laser-textured metal panels use sunlight to evaporate water while automatically moving salt deposits away from the working surface, preventing clogging. The process was successfully tested with water from three oceans and can recover nearly all salts as solids. Those leftover materials could even become a source of valuable lithium for batteries.

A surprising new discovery suggests that tiny microbes living inside fish may be helping shape the chemistry of the world’s oceans. Scientists found evidence that bacteria in the guts of marine fish work alongside their hosts to produce calcium carbonate, a mineral that plays an important role in ocean health and carbon storage. For years, researchers believed fish handled this process on their own, but the new findings point to a hidden partnership between fish and microbes.

Scientists have uncovered a surprising navigation system in pigeons: iron-filled immune cells in the liver that may act like tiny magnetic sensors. Birds deprived of these cells struggled to find their way home under overcast skies, indicating they rely on Earth’s magnetic field for guidance. The discovery could solve a decades-old mystery about animal navigation and reveal an unexpected connection between immunity and sensing the environment.